The present invention relates to a method of making a golf club head.
A stainless steel head of the prior art golf club is generally provided with a greater sweet spot and a better ball-controlling capability by virtue of the fact that its weight is uniformly distributed throughout the head; nevertheless it is defective in that its face is vulnerable to distortion in view of the fact that it has an insufficient rigidity. On the contrary, a carbon fiber head of the prior art golf club is generally provided with an excellent quality of hardness so as to overcome the deficiency described above. However, such lightweight carbon fiber head of golf club has a major shortcoming that it is provided with a weight for the purpose of improving the quality of its heaviness at the expense of its ball-controlling capability. In other words, such carbon fiber head has a relatively small sweet spot.
In order to overcome simultaneously the shortcomings of the stainless steel head of the prior art golf club and the carbon fiber head of the prior art golf club, the striking face of the stainless steel head is provided with a striking plate made from carbon fiber compound. Such mixed head has a large sweet spot and an excellent quality of hardness to resist any distortion of the head.
There are several methods that can be employed to make such mixed head of golf club as described above. For example, a cast head is provided with a slot intended to accommodate a striking plate of carbon fiber material. Such carbon fiber plate is adhered to the slot of the cast head. However, such method is defective in design in that such carbon fiber plate is susceptible to detachment in view of the facts that it is often technically difficult to have a carbon fiber plate adhered securely to a cast head, and that the adhesive, which is used in such method, contains epoxy resin which is highly flowable under pressure and is therefore unable to hold the carbon fiber plate and the cast head together securely. Such deficiency can be overcome by an expensive precision process, which will undoubtedly result in a substantial increase in overall cost of making a golf club.
There is another method, in which a plurality of carbon fiber fabric sheets are stacked in the slot provided on the striking face of a golf club head and are subsequently treated under heat and pressure to form a carbon fiber plate which is attached to the golf club head upon the completion of the treatment. Such carbon fiber plate is of such poor quality as to be vulnerable to stripping piece by piece upon hitting balls.
There is still another method, in which a prefabricated ball-striking plate of dovetail profile is inserted securely into a dovetailed slot of a metal golf club head. The dimension of the dovetailed ball-striking plate of carbon fiber must be very precise in relation to the size of the slot of the metal golf club head, so as to ensure that the ball-striking plate fits well into the slot of the golf club head. In addition, the contact surfaces between the ball-striking plate and the slot must be smooth without any gap so as to ensure that a player swings the golf club comfortably.
Furthermore, a metal golf club head has a uniformly distrubted weight so that the location of its center of gravity is relatively high. With such golf club, a player can hardly hit a ball to travel farther.